Resetting Your Brain: How Cereset Combats Post-Concussion Fatigue with Dr. Ala Lysyk | E26

Dr. Ayla Wolf interviews Dr. Ala Lysyk about Cereset technology, an innovative approach using acoustic feedback to help the brain reset itself after concussion or trauma. They discuss how this engineering-based technology creates a real-time acoustic mirror therapy that allows the brain to recognize and correct harmful patterns causing persistent fatigue and other symptoms.

• Dr. Ala's journey from chiropractor to functional neurologist after being inspired by Dr. Carrick's paradigm-shifting approach
• How persistent post-concussion fatigue led Dr. Ala to search for better solutions for her patients
• The development of Cereset by Lee Gerdes, an electrical engineer who suffered a TBI and discovered sound could help heal his brain
• How Cereset measures emotional and stress fitness in the brain using EEG sensors
• The difference between fight/flight (right-sided dominance) and freeze (left-sided dominance) brain patterns
• The standard five-session protocol and how it creates lasting changes in brain function
• Real patient experiences and transformations after using the technology
• Why this approach works well for visual-sensitive concussion patients as it relies only on sound.

Find more information about Cereset technology at Cereset.com and look for locations near you.

Dr. Ala Lysyk: website

My new book The Art of Concussion Recovery: Following the Thread is available as an audiobook, paperback, hardcover, and Kindle on Amazon. 

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The Art of Concussion Recovery - Audiobook Available on Audible and Apple Books, Paperback and Hardcover on Amazon

Concussion Breakthrough: Discover the Missing Pieces of Concussion Recovery is now available on Amazon!

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Medical disclaimer: this video or podcast is for general informational purposes only, and does not constitute the practice of medicine or other ...

Transcript

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Dr. Ala Lysyk: 0:00

I knew at that moment from how clear my brain felt, that this was the answer to fatigue.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 0:10

Welcome to Life after impact the concussion recovery Podcast. I'm Dr Ayla Wolf, and I will be hosting today's episode where we help you navigate the often confusing, frustrating and overwhelming journey of concussion and brain injury recovery, this podcast is your go to resource for actionable information, whether you're dealing with a recent concussion, struggling with post concussion syndrome, or just feeling stuck in your healing process. In each episode, we dive deep into the symptoms, testing, treatments and neurological insights that can help you move forward with clarity and confidence. We bring you leading experts in the world of brain health, functional neurology and rehabilitation to share their wisdom and strategies. So if you're feeling lost, hopeless or like no one understands what you're going through, know that you are not alone. This podcast can be your guide and partner in recovery, helping you build a better life after impact. Dr aylask, welcome to the life after impact podcast. I am so excited to have you on the show and to talk about a very interesting therapy that you do that I had never heard of until I met you. So why don't you start out by giving us some background on how you got interested in neurology. You started out as a doctor of chiropractic, and that has led you on probably quite a journey to where you are now. So give us some background on your interest in neurology, and then how you got interested in kind of post concussion syndrome and really focusing on the fatigue aspect of the brain,

Dr. Ala Lysyk: 1:47

absolutely. So thank you for having me. Dr Ayla, I appreciate that. And we met at a Carrick seminar. We were sitting in the pool after the seminar. We were chatting, this was during this COVID Craziness. And you're like, you need a hot yoga dome. And I'm like, I don't even know what that is, but we were talking about yoga. And so I want to give you all the credit that I have this large internal in my house, igloo that I blow up and I do yoga in. Thanks to you, my dear. Well, you're welcome. People like, what are you doing? I'm like, hot yoga.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 2:20

Yeah. I mean, during the pandemic, I was like, I need to do my hot yoga. And I found this hot yoga dome that lets me do it at home,

Dr. Ala Lysyk: 2:29

right? Awesome. So neurology for me was born of really trying to figure out how to get out of the chiropractic practice. I was frustrated that I wasn't making the differences I was hoping to make into my patients lives, and so I went on a journey of, what am I going to do next? And so I was like, well, maybe I'll just go sell cars, because I'm pretty sure I could, but I don't know anything about cars, so I thought, well, maybe I should check this out a little bit better. And so there was a conference on whiplash, and that was being held in Chicago. So I told my husband, who practices alongside me, that let's go to Chicago and go to this whiplash seminar and see what we learn. Well, it was like winning the lottery, because Dr Kerik was the presenter. Had no idea who that was, but when things happen to me or for me, or, you know, to get me redirected in life, they usually happen within the first minute of a conversation. And so Dr Carrick got up at this conference and spoke, and within one minute, I was done, and I'm like, I'm going to be absolutely learning what this gentleman right here in front of me is saying, because he had a massive paradigm shift within 60 seconds of speaking to me. I forgot other people were in the room. So shortly after that seminar, literally, the entire carrot neurology program started in Minneapolis, and so it was within two weeks, we were already registered for the program, and both Kelly and I, my husband, went through the Carrick Institute initial training series that took us a couple years we completed that took our board certification, and we literally started in the World of brain and loved every part of it. Loved every part of it, you know, as you know, when you just get out of that program, you're just trying to figure out what what do you do with all this information? And so we we started low and slow. We did purchase a CAPS unit right away so we were able to do posturography. And we started there, we started to learn about balance, and, you know, stance, and looked at gait, as you know, that's the most reliable indicator of, are we making changes? And so as our practice grew and we started to see more and more neurologic cases, the one thing that was really difficult for me as. Practitioner, as a person who wanted everyone to obviously have some positive outcome, was this element of fatigue, and you have written in your new book, and I appreciate that you did that on behalf of this large group of people that should have probably had also versions of that book already written, but you did the work. And kudos to you. And I'm going to read all of it from back to front and eat it up. It was this element of fatigue. Anyone who has suffered any type of trauma to the brain, whether it is concussive or whether it is, you know, an emotional concussion, if you will, or a combination of both, the element of fatigue is a real thing. Now, I just went through a loss of a dear brother this last week, and I can assure you that the grief that you feel when you lose someone that you just adore must feel like a concussion, because I was in a fog like no other this week. I You do your crying, you do all that hugging and all that stuff, but it was like it was shut off. I was like, I am so fatigued, and I didn't do anything physically to feel that way. I didn't do anything other than my brain. Couldn't process at the speed I wanted to. I was like, What is going on? And so I feel as though, even though I've never had a concussion, it's a direct reflection of when the brain is overwhelmed, physically, emotionally, spiritually, or a combination of all of the above. And for those that have suffered a concussion, it is all of the above that fatigue element really haunted me, and I was like, I just cannot continue to see clients and try and help their brain become optimal when they keep hitting this wall of fatigue. And so I went on a journey, and I was like, come on, God, lead me to the answer. How do we help the brain not be so, you know, tired? How do we help it get out of that? I was at a conference in Utah in 2018 and while at that conference, I kept putting my hand up and saying, Well, what can you do for fatigue? And so one of the colleagues, and this was a bioenergetic testing conference where we use bio energetic modalities to try and understand different, you know, like, you know, meridians and and what was happening in the energy fields, and looking at it from a different perspective. And one of the colleagues at the conference said, why don't you go to the brain conference in Orlando next week, if you're so interested in this brain stuff? Because that's not what the center of the conference is today. I was like, okay, and I'm usually not a really well reserved person, I want to know the answer, like right now, and that's why I get kicked out of classrooms, mostly out of Dr carrots, every time I'm in one. So thanks to him for always kicking me out and then coming and yelling at me after the conference that I should shut up. And he said, your curiosity is going to kill me. Ayla, you know, he just knows. He's like, Oh no, you're here. So I went to the Orlando conference, really not doing much research. I just literally believed that this person was guiding me in the right direction. I showed up that conference in Orlando in 2018 and everybody had a different perspective on what the brain does in light of an injury or trauma, and the and the actual title of the conference was how to help the brain regenerate after injury. And so I thought, well, this is the right one, and it was about 500 participants. It was a culmination of MDS, dos, DCS, neurologists, there were people doing stem cell research. There were, it was like a whole smorgasbord of different specialties trying to figure out what to do for the first two days of that conference. The people that got up and said, You know what they said? And they lectured about what they lectured all were focusing on how to influence the brain. Do neurofeedback, biofeedback, do vitamins, minerals, medications, and even one talked about stem cell research, which was very interesting. I had not, had not known anything about that at that point. And I was kind of like deflated saying that I understand those modalities can make a difference, but they do not solve the problem of fatigue, at least from my understanding and from my experience. On the third day of the conference, this very tall, lanky man gets up to the microphone and he says, You know, I've been listening to all you doctors for the last two days talking about how to fix the brain. Well, this is what I know. Four kids took a bat to my head, and I suffered a traumatic brain injury as I was closing the gates to the church, and my life was never the same after that, for the next eight years of my life after I got out. Of a hospital, from my from my injuries, recovered from those, I couldn't sleep for the next eight years, I did not sleep, and the doctors kept telling me, you just have a concussion. It'll just take some time. And he said, No, my brain doesn't work, and you guys are not giving me any understanding of why. I didn't know what to do. At one point, I wanted to kill someone and myself all at the same time. At some times, I would be joyful and miserable all in the same context. He's like, I am losing my mind. I had no energy. I could no longer think. Even though I was an engineer by training, I could still calculate, but I couldn't think. I had this overwhelming fog. I had such a dysregulated mood, I could not respond to stress well at all. I was completely an imbecile when new stressors came my way, and so I didn't know what to do, he said. So he said he would spend much of his days outside, sitting at the culverts in Arizona, where he was from, and he would scream at God how angry he was. And he said it was the weirdest thing that I experienced when I screamed. I would hear my echo, and for some reason, my brain took whatever that was and it made me feel different. And he said, I have no idea what this even means. And he and he started to think about, what is it that makes my brain feel this way when I hear my echo? So he spent more and more time in nature as he continued on with his explanation of who he was and why he was at this conference. And he said, I think that the sounds of nature have something to do with the brain's capacity to relax. And he wanted to understand why, so he started to feverishly study the brain, and he started to learn everything about brain anatomy, physiology, the electrical activity. And he said, You know what? I can measure the brain's electrical activity. I'm an electrical engineer. I understand that stuff better than anyone. And so he said, I started measuring the brain activity, and then he thought, How do I tell the brain what it should do or is doing in real time? How do I tell it what it's doing, just like when you look in a mirror and you see your own reflection, he said, How do I tell it what it's doing through a reflection? And so he learned from his studies of brain that the visual system uses way too many parts of the brain, so it would be very difficult to measure data, but the acoustic the sound is in this temporal lobe. And what he also found was that is where the autonomic nervous system lives, and that's the regulator of autonomics. He's like, I wonder if I can use sound. And so that's when he developed his technology, which was initially called Brain optimization, and now it's called Sarah set, which means cerebral reset. And he said, I'm going to give the brain as fast as I can its actual acoustic or its actual echo from the sensors that I place in different locations of the brain. So he used EEG technology, which was about well vetted, and he wrote an algorithm to give the brain, or the ear, if you will, an immediate echo of the output from those sensors through his proprietary algorithm. So as the years went by, he continued to improve the speed of processing of his actual reflection into the ear. So now you're literally sitting in a session listening to your own brain in real time. Your brain generates the Echo, which is pretty amazing. I was like, what? However, so at that conference, of course, I'm like, hurry up and finish, because I felt like I was the only one in the conference room, because I felt as though that could be the answer to the brains fatigue. I spoke with Lee Gerdes after that set, after that seminar, and he said, If you want to learn more, first, you're going to have to go through the Sarah said, process. So I flew at Arizona, where our headquarters are, went through the process, and it changed my entire life within the first minute of the first session, and I went to learn more. I didn't go to figure out fatigue. I didn't even know I had any. And so I went through the session, and it completely changed everything about me. I was more focused. I had such an amazing sense of joy in my heart. I didn't even know what to do with it. I was like, What just happened to me? And I'm a pretty happy person, but a deep sense of joy was pretty delicious, let me tell you, as Dr Carrick would say. And so I knew at that moment. It from how clear my brain felt that this was the answer to fatigue, and within two months, we brought the serious process back to Fargo, North Dakota, seven years ago now, six years ago, going into our seventh year, and I started seeing many of my concussion clients go through the seroset process, and it changed their life. It was unbelievable, because once they were able to have their brain balance and harmonize and relax, they were more like themselves. They were like, Oh, I can think clearer. Oh, I can focus better. Now, when I do my exercises, I feel like I'm gaining ground. And so that's kind of where my journey has led to with using other modalities like Sarah set to help our brains relax, rebalance and hopefully reset. And so in my practice, when I see that extreme fatigue in a client, or I see that they're not progressing from the things that I've learned and have been able to, hopefully, in some level, Master, in my bedside neurologic exam, in my assessment, I really know when they need to go in this direction before I take them along that pathway of functional neurology as being the main, main component,

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 16:21

amazing. Thank you for explaining kind of your process of getting to, you know, using the device. And then, you know, I'd love to talk about the science behind it, but first, I just want to go back and say my condolences for the loss of your brother, and I'm so sorry. I know that was very recent, and yet, you know, so thank you for setting aside time in your day to do this. Oh,

Dr. Ala Lysyk: 16:44

yeah, thank you. It's okay. We appreciate that.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 16:49

when you say that you did your first session and your whole world changed, I just want to say, I want to share too. You know, when I reached out to you to say, hey, let's do the podcast, you said, Well, you have to come try this before we actually talk about it. And so thank you for letting me come and do it as well. And you know, I think that I was trying to think back to like, Okay, well, now I've done three sessions. Now I still have Cereset electrode gel in my hair from this morning, which is why it looks so fabulously styled. Fabulous.

Dr. Ala Lysyk: 17:21

I should put some in my hair. Maybe it will look fabulous, like yours.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 17:25

I know it's like, I've got like, Something About Mary hair here with this gel.

Dr. Ala Lysyk: 17:29

The best shows ever!

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 17:32

But what I what I realized it's like, I absolutely need to take melatonin in order to fall asleep. And since I started Cereset I have been like, slowly lowering my dose because I suddenly was waking up super groggy and realized, like, feeling like I had taken too much melatonin. Interesting. And so for somebody who's had like, a lifetime of having a very hard time falling asleep, I'm now actually at a point where I don't need as much melatonin to fall asleep, which is, that's, that's like, very huge for me. That's fabulous. Yeah, that's what I noticed. So for people who have never heard of Cereset and don't know the process, there's, there's a couple of steps involved, yes? So let's start with step one and walk us through the process.

Dr. Ala Lysyk: 18:18

Absolutely. So in order for us to understand if Cereset is the best next step for a client, and we do see a lot of post concussion clients because of the fatigue factor that I went on that journey for, but we also see clients with, you know, neurodegenerative diseases or early onset dementia. We see Parkinson's. We see people with just PTSD, not just but PTSD, and from different grades of PTSD, from someone who's having trouble focusing in school and feeling unsuccessful, or someone who has truly lost a loved one, or perhaps have been injured or traumatized themselves. So we always want to understand what is the client's main goal, because Circe is not a medical technology. It's an engineering technology, and it is really categorized in the wellness portion of the industry. It is not medical so we don't treat patients. We actually don't do anything to patients other than place sensors in specific locations on the scalp, and then your brain does the rest, which is a pretty amazing thing, because we do not influence it. We just give it an acoustic mirror, and it does the work, which is pretty phenomenal, in my opinion. And so we start the process by measuring two areas of the brain. Any of the people on this podcast that are listening know what I may be speaking of. We talk about the emotional context of the brain, how emotions affect us, right? We want emotions to affect us in such a way that when there's something happy, we're joyful, and then we go back to a resting state, or if there's something traumatic, that we respond, we make sure we're safe, and we go back to a resting state. And I always use the analogy with my clients that, did you know that zebras don't get ulcers? And they're like, Huh? I'm like, zebras don't get ulcers because the nature of the human nervous system is to be able to respond and then to go back to a resting state so that you don't get sick. Well, we live in a world of a lot of eternal sickness, whether that's mental, emotional, spiritual, physical, or a combination of all of those. And so we want to measure two regions of the brain. The area over the eyebrows is what we at the Sarah set model call the emotional fitness. So when I talk about Sarah said, I talk about fitness because we're trying to optimize the brain. We're not trying to fix anything. It's not a medical technology. We're trying to optimize. So we look at what your fitness capacity is in that area. When we measure a baseline using EEG electrodes, we're looking at, is there a dominance? Is there a left sided dominance? Is there a right sided dominance? So take into account and you've experienced this, close your eyes, sit in a quiet room, no one's talking to we're going to stand right next to put EEG sensors over the forehead, and we're going to measure what your brain is doing at that moment in time, as fast as our processor can give us that feedback. And so then we learn if your emotional centers are activated while you're in a quiet space? Well, we know when you walk out into your world that they're probably not going to go back to a resting threshold, they're probably going to be further amped. So we want to understand what is your brain's capacity to remain at a resting threshold, or is it amped? So I believe that when we did your baseline, I'm going to talk a little bit about yours, I believe that you had had a right sided emotional dominance, and I said to you, you're probably agitated eat, you know, peeved or irritated, and you kind of thought about it when we first talked about it, and you kind of then said, I think it might be fear. And I said that is correct. That could be also a descriptor of having a right sided emotional fitness that's dominant, because fear was that you were launching your book, that day, literally, that day. And so you were like, Oh my goodness. And that makes sense, whether that was already hardwired for months on end, knowing that you had had nightmares, that would make sense that that side of the brain was already wiring a dominant pattern, and we want the brain to be in a relaxed pattern so it can respond to things that could cause fear, like a saber tooth tiger not releasing a book, even though we can understand that there are nerves involved. But when someone has been traumatized, injured, and it is a long standing, or even recent the brain still has to have that plasticity we all talk about and that flexibility we all talk about to be able to address that event and then go back to a resting state to keep us aware of nuances that may occur. So people with post concussion, people with neurodegenerative people that have had PTSD, emotional trauma, their brains become really hard linked to things that have influenced it, and that is when the brain is now running, even when it's supposed to be resting. IE, fatigue, makes sense, right?

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 23:36

Yeah. And so I remember on my printout, basically my right temporal lobe had way more activity than my left temporal lobe, but it said that my emotional fitness score was 98

Dr. Ala Lysyk: 23:49

Yeah, it was slightly to the right. So we measure the next area, which is called the stress fitness area. In the seroset model, those of us in functional neurology or trained in urology, would understand that the temporal area is where our autonomics are regulated. So if we would see a right sided dominance on our baseline measurement, we would know that you are in a very a state of flight and fight. If you had a left sided dominance on our on our baseline, you would be in a freeze response. We don't talk about freeze response enough. We talk about flight and fight a lot in functional neurology that your heart rates up, your respiratory rates up, you're probably in a flight and fight. But what we see in the Sarah set model is we see freeze a lot more, especially when people have been in that state for prolonged periods of time, because the brain can only sustain a flight and fight response for so long, and then it runs out of energy, and the person then experiences a good load of fatigue, right? Their energy is compromised, or sleep is. Compromise their thinking capacity. They'll say they have brain fog. They'll talk about their inability to respond to new stressors, and they may physically feel it, but we see a lot of people in the freeze response, which is an extreme parasympathetic response, where they'll say to you, I can't think, I can't focus, I can't remember stuff, I can't concentrate. Do I have Alzheimer's? Like they'll they'll get into that mode, and then when they hear themselves now, they're in a flight and fight because they're stressed out about it. And so when we measure these two areas, during our introductory portion of Sarah said, to determine is this the next best step? We want to look at those two areas. Because if emotionally, you're taxed, and if your autonomics are taxed, the rest of the brain can't operate optimally. That's why Sarah set uses those two areas as the main baseline regions to determine if we continue with the process.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 26:53

And so whether somebody has hyperactivity or increased activity on the right versus the left, either one of those imbalances still would suggest that seroset is a good fit.

Dr. Ala Lysyk: 27:06

It could be a very good fit. But we also always base for our model how we run our seroset. You know, technology, it's always based on what is the patient, what is a client's goals? What are we trying to accomplish? What are we trying to change? Because if they are trying to, if they're trying to with the seroset model, mitigate Parkinson's, that we can't do that, we're we don't do that. We don't fix your migraine headache, what we do is we help the brain try and restore balance and harmony through its own innate intelligence, by giving it the acoustic echo mirror to do it on its own. And we see resolution of migraine like no other, because the majority of people are super stressed out, and their brain is like always in that frontal lobe, and is trying to, you know, mitigate all of the world's problems, and it's hitting the wall of fatigue, and it can't support for that period of time. And the cerebral flood, blood flow changes, as we all know, oxygen perfusion changes and and they get on, they get a migraine, and it could be cyclical around their period, because we know what hormones do, but we also know what stress hormones do. So it's such a tough space to be in medicine trying to figure out what is the dang cause. So I like to reflect back. How are you responding to stress? What's your energy like, how's your thinking capacity? Yeah,

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 28:40

well, and I think this also brings up a really good point, which is that I think in medicine, we've paid way too much attention so far to the chemical aspect of brain function, and not enough on the electrical aspect of brain function. And so when we have one part of the brain that's firing too high and people have difficulty focusing and concentrating. Well, if you just go in and give the entire brain the same stimulant, then everything just gets stimulated, and you're still not actually correcting the imbalance between the different regions of the brain, which is also why I think this is so cool is because in this, you know, a we're not actively trying to do anything. You're mirroring the brain's own talking to itself. But in doing that, it can actually start to quiet down the areas that are too loud, and hopefully ramp up the areas that are maybe too quiet, bring everything back into balance without introducing any kind of chemical,

Dr. Ala Lysyk: 29:39

Absolutely. And our our engineers, again, this is an engineering technology, and it is studied, and it is continually feverishly studied in two populations, the military, as well as in prisoners. That's how it initially started, and that's where they got their databases. Is because those two groups, don't leave the study. That's what I was like. Oh, smart,

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 30:03

A captive audience!

Dr. Ala Lysyk: 30:06

Cereset has been able to make some tremendous positive outcomes with the PTSD factor in our military, and specifically suicide, because when they have been confronted with such terror and trauma that suicide is a real thing, right? So that's pretty darn cool. The other part of the Sarah set model that I love, that our engineers are always trying to mitigate, is when we do see brains that do get stuck in hard patterns, because sometimes they stay stuck. We they have created different montages where we can actually quiet those overactive areas and allow us, as tech coaches of the cirrhosette process, to help the brain help itself. We're not influencing it. We're just sort of like, hey, look from this angle. And. And so we use the sensors in different placements on different other montages to help kind of make the brain move away from something that's been so hard wired. You think of people with autism, ADHD, those are hard wired. Their phenotype has changed based on those hard wired patterns. They're intelligent, beautiful humans, but their facial expressions have become part of that brain wiring, and when you start to see their brain relax, the facial expressions are pretty amazing. I had one today that I was like, holy moly, amazing. And yet we're not doing anything to the brain, which, again, I walk away going, that's amazing.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 31:43

So with my first experience, you know, I'm laying there, I had these electrodes on my brain. I've got ear buds in my ears. And you, you know, you hit play, you walk out the room. And as I lay there in the dark with my eyes closed, I'm listening to these, these, like low notes, which almost sound like you're plucking a cello string, and then these high notes, which sound like someone's banging on a xylophone. And I'm sitting there, and I started laughing, because I'm like, I'm spying on my own brain right now!

Dr. Ala Lysyk: 32:13

I'm gonna use that line. I'm gonna make T shirts and be like, "spying on my brain".

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 32:19

And then I just, I couldn't stop grinning. I thought it was so funny. And then I was like, This is what my brain sounds like. This is, this is my left brain talking to my right brain right now. And I don't know, for some reason, I maybe that's the joy you felt.

Dr. Ala Lysyk: 32:32

You're like, I'm spying on my brain. So I thought that that was pretty funny. Yeah, very different experiences. It's so interesting to hear clients they will want. One man, this is what funny one. He's like, um, that was quite a magic carpet ride I was on. I'm like, what that means? But he's like, No, I was on a magic carpet ride through my brain. I'm like, there you go. Another lady got up out of the chair on her first session. She's like, I need to go for a run. And Laura and I, who partner together, she's we're like, okay. And so she left the building and ran around the block and came back. We're like,

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 33:08

Oh, wow. Like, she was like, I need to go. Now,

Dr. Ala Lysyk: 33:09

another boy swore at us the whole time. Like, not at us, but he swore during the session the entire time. He was just saying shut the Oh. And after his second session, never again. And I can, I can assure you that young man's journey changed so dramatically. He was this young, clumsy, just loud, just couldn't his brain just couldn't like and he's just brilliant, his expressivity, his ability to be socially comfortable, is so cool, awesome. Yeah, who knows? Yeah, who knows?

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 33:47

Wow. I love this idea of me like mirror therapy, but with sound versus actual. You know, mirrors and using the visual system. And obviously, people with concussions, lot of times, their visual system is compromised in certain aspects, and so to be able to do a therapy that doesn't rely on vision at all is also pretty incredible.

Dr. Ala Lysyk: 34:08

It's a game changer for so many that have such a visual dysregulation where they are, you know, beat up by moving objects, whether it's coming at them or away from them, and there are just inability to take that info and filter it when they don't need it and grab it when they do need it. I've seen so many with just that nasty convergence accommodation spasm, because that is just, obviously, that's why they're having depth perception issues. When that part of the brain relaxes and we we measure the occipital lobe, we look at the cerebellum, we look at the parietal and the temporal and the frontals, like we mirror the entire brain during the process of suicide, and sometimes when we see patterns of really stuck patterns in the cerebellum, as well as in the central portion, the central strip of the brain, when it relaxes, that accommodative spasm changes interesting, remarkably. And people will remark that my eyes are more relaxed, like I just feel more relaxed in my visual system. And then we can interject with our, you know, divergence exercises, or dampening that otolithic response and all that minutia the Dr. Carrick introduced into our brains and haunts me every single day that I don't know what he's talking about. And then text him. He's like, Why do you ask me such questions? Ala!

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 35:43

well, and I was also surprised to find that the the kind of like the treatment is five sessions. And so five sessions is seems so doable, you know, to ask somebody to come in five times. How, when, when people do their five sessions, then you kind of put them on maybe, like a maintenance plan. What does that look like? Yep,

Dr. Ala Lysyk: 36:05

sure. So the reason the five sessions is that was studied and vetted when they were measuring the changes in the military and in the prisoners groups to understand, how long does it take the brain to make these changes. What does it take? And so when you think about the process of Sarah set, it's a reset. I like to use the analogy of taking a piano that's been sitting in a cold room covered with a blanket. It's still a piano, it has all the keys, it's not damaged, but as soon as you hit C, you're like, Well, that sounds terrible. Think of that piano in analogy of someone's brain that's been injured when, when they hear a sound, it's not the beautiful sea that is from a fine tuned piano. Or when they see a sight, it's not clear and crisp like it once was. Or when they have an emotional event, it's not like it once was where they could respond and appreciate the context of it, they are in a gray zone. And so when we take that piano that's been sitting in that cold room, and we we bring in an expert to tune and to tune and to finally get all the keys to sound more so like themselves. That's the first five sessions of Sarah said, we want to get it tuned and then tune up, sort of fine tune it as they establish better, you know, if you will, networking, if they start to do more outside of their protected way of living, and they start to explore and do more and expose themselves to more new stressors, whatever they're good or bad or indifferent, then we fine tune to help the brain continue to make those adaptations, to continue to build neuroplasticity through its own efforts, because it's no longer hitting that wall of fatigue. So tune ups can be very different for each individual. Some people we need to guard a little bit more because they're so fragile. Others that are a little bit more robust. They go longer between sessions. And sometimes we've seen people go and we've never seen them again, but we see them and they're like, I'm good. So everyone's very different.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 38:16

Got it. And then after the five sessions, you rescan the brain, you get another kind of report. And what do you often see?

Dr. Ala Lysyk: 38:24

We also run different baselines depending on what we see, if we're in the occipital area or in the cerebellar area, and we're seeing a lot of disparity in the wave bands that we're measuring in our seroset model. Then we will run baselines in those areas as well. So if I see a concussion client of mine that I will want my tech coaches to run a baseline, they'll run it in the cerebellar area for for many reasons, I want to see. Is there disharmony? Is there imbalance, like how what's the dominance in that area? Is there a lot of splits going on is one area driving harder, because the as you know, the brain isn't supposed to fire together. It's supposed to have this rhythmic movement, like two partners dancing. But when it fires, like if an engine fires and the pistons all fire at the same time, which is what happens that we see post concussion or post bleed or post infection, then when those pistons are firing, energy is being wasted, and that system can't do its brilliance. So we do look at pre and post, and we do during the session, always look at live data so that we can understand, can we assist the brain in getting there faster.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 39:39

And then I was curious, as I was laying there listening to my own brain. Are you, are you also listening when you're not in the room? Or are you looking at,

Dr. Ala Lysyk: 39:50

we can't hear, we can only see the brain waves during during the actual session?

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 39:55

Are you seeing those brain waves, and able to, like, look at that and see that over time, things are changing between session one and session five. fascinating. I'm just so grateful

Dr. Ala Lysyk: 40:06

Absolutely we're looking at each session is the brain making changes? If we see that it's staying stubborn, then we bring in different montages where we can quiet, support the journey, and Cereset, became part of it. brain to help it along, something that

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 41:54

And so I know that there are locations all over the country now or around the globe. So where can people find you? Where can people find Sarah set,

Dr. Ala Lysyk: 42:04

absolutely, you know the best way to locate depending on where you live, just Sarah set.com, C, E, R, E, S, E T. So it's cerebralreset.com. We are located in Plymouth, Minnesota, so just by Minneapolis here, and we're also in Fargo, North Dakota, as far as my locations, but there are many others around. And with the process of Sarah set, irregardless of which location you go to, you will have a very uniform and consistent process, because that's how engineers are, right? Which, that's another part I'm very appreciative of. So the inter examiner, intra examiner reliability is quite high.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 42:47

It's the McDonald's of the brain

Dr. Ala Lysyk: 42:51

is there you go. And I want to go to McDonald's University to figure out how they build these amazing, billion dollar industry, so maybe you and I could go to McDonald's U, or Chick-a-filet U.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 43:04

The way my brain works is, I don't like protocols. So anytime someone says, like, this is the thing you have to do, every single time, my brain just goes, no,

Dr. Ala Lysyk: 43:14

that's when you hire people to do this.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 43:18

right? Oh my gosh. I would love to have a Cereset in my building, and I can just send everybody do these five sessions and come back to me.

Dr. Ala Lysyk: 43:26

and know what absolutely we're gonna keep chatting about that want.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 43:30

Okay, let's do let. Awesome. Well, anything else that I didn't ask you that you feel is important to share.

Dr. Ala Lysyk: 43:38

I just think it's really important that we, as you know people who are taking someone's life into our own hands. I think that we need to, I think that we need to know that we need to seek more help from multiple types of, if you will, specialties, because these people's lives depend on it, and I think that that's where we continue to learn. I think technology will bring more and more to our toolbox or a toolkit, and I think that we're going to be able to really help people long term with our knowledge base, and as we grow, don't forget, there's more to learn every day. And I am so grateful to this entire network of people that are in this functional neurology family. Of course, Dr Carrick, I can't tell you that my life changed because he changed my paradigm, and so did Lee Gerdes. That brought on Cereset, and so did you know, many other things that we do in our practice. And so I think that as us in the you know, right there, in the trenches with people, we need to be the ones that are collaborating and communicating and talking to one another to make sure that we deliver the highest quality, the most contemporary approach to their recovery. That's all I know.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 45:03

absolutely. I mean that there's so much we don't know about the brain and so much we're still learning every single day that it is sometimes it feels overwhelming, but when you have that curiosity to learn, it's a never ending journey. So thank you so much for sharing about Sarah said, I think it's such an amazing therapy. I'm so blessed that I got to be able to experience it with you, and so I'm happy to share this with everybody else.

Dr. Ala Lysyk: 45:27

I appreciate that. Thank you so much for having me on this show. I wish you all the best with your book and your podcast. I can't wait to read it. I have paged through it already. Thank you for putting it at a font that I could do it without my cheaters that are on top of my head. That's like, brilliant. And I see that obviously, any one that's a patient should be reading that book, because you laid it out literally explaining what most of us have learned. Are trying to implement. I love that. So if you write a second version, maybe Sarah set will be mentioned in there.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 46:02

Yes, I know I should have reached out to you a year ago. I would have made it in there. Edition number two, we'll have Cereset.

Dr. Ala Lysyk: 46:10

I love it. Thanks again. Dr, Ayla, I appreciate the time that you spent with me today.

Dr. Ayla Wolf: 46:15

Absolutely. All right, take care. Thanks, you as well. Bye, bye. Medical disclaimer. This video or podcast is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute the practice of medicine or other professional health care services, including the giving of medical advice. No doctor patient relationship is formed. The use of this information and materials included is at the user's own risk. The content of this video or podcast is not intended to be a substitute for medical advice diagnosis or treatment, and consumers of this information should seek the advice of a medical professional for any and all health related issues, a link to our full medical disclaimer is available in the notes you.